For cash-strapped councils, turning away much-needed income by restricting adverts for junk food, fossil fuels or other harmful products might seem like a policy they can ill afford.

But a new report, published by the advocacy alliance Sustain and carried out by our team at the University of Portsmouth, suggests otherwise.

Our report found no evidence that councils introducing healthier food advertising policies lost advertising revenue when compared to places without such a policy. The finding held for councils across the UK with different advertising sites (from bus shelters to benches), locations and contract arrangements.

For our analysis, we sent freedom of information requests to all local councils in the UK. From the 360 responses received, only 38 councils provided enough data on the annual percentage change of revenue (between 2019-23) to allow for comparison. Three of those 38 councils had introduced healthier food advertising policies during that five-year period; the rest (35) did not have those policies.

By comparing the revenue of local governments that implemented a healthier food advertising policy to those without, a statistical model assessed whether council revenues were now below what would have been expected had they not implemented a healthier foods advertising policy. The findings show that councils did not lose potential........

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